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Cult-Matt | 07/13/04

Yesterday could have been pretty easily considered a dream. The weird occurrences started at around 2:00pm when my power went off. Since I had just paid the bill, I opened my door to see that my entire apartment was sans power. Since the temperature was in the high 90s and preparing to break 100, I figured it would be an opportune time to get out of the house and get some lunch. Working our way past the dozens of new, obnoxious residents splashing in the pool, Chompy and I boarded the Taurus and put up the sails towards Chick-Fil-A. The two stoplights on my apartment's grid were also out. But wait, until I got to Monroe Street, there were no lights at all. Fortunately, the light at Apalachee and Monroe was working and I was able to get onto Apalachee with no problem. From that point on, there was no power anywhere down to the Wal-Mart. I saw four accidents on that stretch of road alone. Figuring it was an opportune time to go looting, I headed back towards the mall and put Chompy's black mask on and had pulled my crowbar halfway out of the trunk when another accident hit behind us. With all these accidents and people being so pissed off, we figured all the good loot had probably already been taken so we went back home. While the power came on elsewhere, out little grid was still lacking and my apartment's temperature was up to 97 when it kicked back on around 5:30. During the down time I started to pack my things up. I made it through most of my clothes and my closet in general but I quickly ran out of boxes and bins. I need to loot some more from somewhere, but where? Even if I had boxes, I didn't have any tape so there wasn't much more I could do. Chompy and I watched a little TV before Jamie and Ab came over to watch the All-Star game. The NL blew it, of course, thanks to Roger Clemens. It was an easy loss for him to take since the Astros will not be going to the World Series, but he could have at least tried to not allow six runs in the first inning. After the game I got some Taco Bell with McDonald's fries. Mmm.

I was wrong--the weird occurrences started at noon, when I received a text-message from Cult-Matt. I figured it would be a great time to call, since I wasn't doing anything. Even though he was one of my closest friends for many years, the bulk of our 13 minute conversation was spent in utter and complete silence. As I had been warned, it was like talking to a high school kid. I was hoping to hear some cult stories and outright asked but he said he had none. I asked a lot of questions and got a bunch of well-rehearsed "answers" that answered nothing. The only questions he asked me were a) So, are you in school? b) Were you lying when you said that your parents house had termites? c) Do you have Emily Augustine's phone number? The first one was innocent enough but nice spin on the second question. Of course they did--the back half of the house wasn't there. As for Emily--that was eight years ago! She and I weren't exactly the type of people to keep in touch. I sent her an email my freshman year of college, she never wrote back and that was it. What was so scary and disheartening was that, Emily is where Matt's life left off. While the rest of us have gone to college or moved around the country or even just stayed current with modern events, Matt is stuck in 1996-7, which of course made the conversation, if it can even be called that, pretty damn horrible. The conversation ended with him saying what we were both thinking, "Well, let's talk again when there's something to say". I couldn't have agreed more.